Saturday, December 15, 2007

This morning I took Pebbles to the doctor for a sick visit for the first time in her life. Naturally, by the time we got her to the doctor she was not sick at all. And it's just because I hate that kind of visit -- "Honest, doctor, she was real hot until we pulled into your parking lot! -- that I generally resist taking the girls to the doctor when they are sick. I have never once gotten any satisfaction out of it, since they never needed antibiotics, I knew in advance that they weren't sick enough to be hospitalized, and I refused to give Nutmeg the cough syrup prescribed.

Anyway, the thing with Pebbles is that she'd been running a temperature Thursday and Friday, and Friday night her Tylenol dose wore off while she was sleeping and she woke up with a temp of 104. I got a 103.7 on the armpit and it concerned me enough to take my first ever rectal temperature. It wasn't really that hard. But I was sad to end my streak of 44 months of parenting with no thermometers up the butt. Now we have to start all over.

A quick phone call to my mom, who's a nurse, confirmed that we better call the doctor. The doctor said to go to the ER if we couldn't get the temp down in one hour or if it was still over 103 in two hours. And if the baby still had a temp in the morning, might as well bring her into the office because it's only open Saturday morning.

Once Pebbles got her Tylenol, the temp went right down to a comparatively comfortable 102. It was still 102 in the morning so we dosed her again and brought her in. She was cheerful and energetic, and when I got her out of the car I noticed her forehead felt completely normal to my lips.

Sure enough, the nurse got her temp at 98.8.

One thing at the doctors did worry me, though: Her weight was down to 15.3, which means she lost 7 ounces by eating hardly any solids in a couple of sick days. The doctor wasn't concerned, but I can't help but sigh at the lost ground. We had been hoping we were closing in on 16 pounds and now we're practically at 15.

Although she hasn't wanted any solids, the sick baby's been nursing nonstop. Interestingly, either she's not sucking effectively or she's kicked up my production, because today the nursies were uncomfortably full and I pumped two bottles in minutes. I sure hope it's the supply and not the baby not drinking well. We'll have to keep an eye on those wet diapers.

Anyway, sick baby was just one part of our lame week. The other parts were: Sick Epu (Sunday and Monday), sick Nutmeg (Monday and Tuesday), sick of staying in the house caring for sick kids Mommy. And then things got really hairy: A family member up in Wisconsin had to go to the hospital, and we were repeatedly assured that it was not a stroke. Which of course made us terrified that he had had a stroke. But everything turned out to be more or less fine.

As if all that wasn't enough, Epu got hit by a small SUV on his way to the train Thursday evening. He sustained a cut on his pinkie finger. Not even any bruises. Incredibly lucky.

I was not feeling as lucky today when I accidentally nailed Nutmeg with a reindeer-themed serving tray as I unloaded the dish-drying rack. Right on the corner of the eye, and it bled. The worst part about it was Nutmeg -- quite the drama queen these days even in more minor incidents -- howling, "Mommy, why?"

Why, indeed? Well, I don't want to ask the great karmic thingie too many questions, because I'm just happy we all got out of these week with no more than scratches.

tonight i was putting grace's jacket on at the pizza place where we had supper, and i accidentally (and very gently) smoked her in the nose with the heel my hand. she clutched her nose with both hands, looked at me as though i had just committed murder, and let our a blood curdling wail. it took 20 minutes before the sniveling stopped. good times, good times.